Face to face with friends and the famous

Portrait artist Jon Friedman likes to spend a couple of days getting to know his subjects before he picks up his paintbrush.

Johanna Crosby

FROZEN MUSIC – Cellist Amit Peled, captured by Jon Friedman.

Cotuit show reveals the art of Jon Friedman

Portrait artist Jon Friedman likes to spend a couple of days getting to know his subjects before he picks up his paintbrush.

Usually they first meet over lunch or dinner and spend the next day in an informal two- to three-hour photo session. But it was a different story with Bill and Melinda Gates. The artist wasn’t allowed to communicate with the power couple until he walked into the photo session at their new company in Seattle. He had a scant 45 minutes to shoot their pictures.

“It was pressurized. The clock was ticking,” he admits. “They have such busy schedules with intense demands on their time.”

Luckily Friedman had prepped for the shoot by watching videos of the couple. Gates, looking like just a regular guy in a crumpled pin-striped, and his wife, posed more formally with a studied expression on her face, are the most well-known subjects in “Jon Friedman: Notables and Friends: Contemporary Portrait Studies,” a free exhibit at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. The show features more than 100 preliminary studies of Friedman’s commissioned public portraits.

The majority of the portraits depict esteemed scholars, scientists, judges and musicians. But scattered among them are portraits of Friedman’s friends and family members as well as three whimsical self-portraits.

It’s striking that there are so few women and almost no people of color in the collection. Instead, most portraits are of white men over the age of 50. It’s a reality, Friedman notes, that reflects the distribution of power and influence in our culture. Most of his public portraits are commissioned by academic, research and government institutions.

True to his artistic soul, Friedman enjoys doing portraits of friends and family whose faces he finds interesting. Several informal portraits feature his stunning wife Joanne pictured with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background and another on a beach with a brilliant fiery red-orange sunset as the backdrop.

Friedman, who divides his time between New York City and Truro, never intended to be a portrait painter. Instead, he started out as an abstract artist who switched to portrait painting late in his career. He taught at Connecticut College and worked as a commercial painter and illustrator. Over the years, his work became less abstract and more representational.

Portrait painting has changed in recent years. In the past people sat for hours, sometimes for days, weeks or even months, while the artist worked. Friedman uses a digital camera as his sketchbook. During a typical two-hour photo session he shoots over 1,000 pictures of his subject then downloads the photos on his computer and uses them to trigger his memories when he paints the final portrait.

Friedman views portrait painting as a uniquely intimate experience and collaborative process. He engages his subjects so they aren’t passive sitters and tries to put them at ease.

“It’s very informal. I don’t pose them,” he says. Many of his subjects are scientists and scholars “who are very self-conscious. A lot of them balk,’ he says, at having their portrait done.

The portrait artist describes his photo shoots as “visual brainstorming” sessions. He and his subjects work together trying out poses to find one that feels the most natural. He allows them to look at the preliminary photos.

“All of my paintings have been improved by their input,” he says.

Friedman’s aim is to capture a person’s personality and character so viewers will think they are seeing the real person. Interesting backgrounds and settings appear in his portraits to help tell a story and create a visual narrative. He also invites people to incorporate their personal or professional mementoes in their portrait, or something they are passionate about like a work of art.

Two portraits of Dr. Larry Kaiser, chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, depict the surgeon dressed in his green scrubs in the operating room with an array of surgical tools on the operating table. Morris “Buzz” Arnold, Judge U.S. Court of Appeal for the Eighth Circuit Court, is shown in his law library with his hand on a stack of legal reference books. One of the most animated portraits is “The Cellist” which features five views of cellist Amit Peled playing his instrument.

One of the most interesting aspects of the show is titled “Focusing on Hands.” While the face is the main focus of a portrait, hands can also reveal a lot about a person. Friedman’s best example is a striking portrait of Maxine Singer, president of the Carnegie Institute, gesturing with one hand. “The Poet’s Hands” features bespectacled U.S. poet laureate Phil Levine gesturing with one hand and the text of one of his poems spewing out on the canvas.

Friedman likes to incorporate landscapes in his portraits. “Kayak Loafing” depicts a barefooted man named Dan Butterworth, outstretched in a kayak blissfully enjoying his surroundings, a serene marsh.

“Jon Friedman: Notables and Friends: Contemporary Portrait Studies,” will be on display through July 22 at Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Falmouth Road (Route 28). Admission is free. For information, call 508-428-0669.

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